


Migrant Heart

by Flukas



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adults, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Angst, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 07:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19459048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flukas/pseuds/Flukas
Summary: Scott hasn't told his mother that he's married. It isn't that he wants to keep her in the dark; it's that the marriage is sort of a favor to his friend Isaac, a British immigrant in need of a Green Card and safety from his father's abuses back home. So, Scott just assumes that maybe it's best not to tell her. That becomes a problem when Isaac ends up in the hospital in a coma.





	Migrant Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! This story will consist of two parts. The "summary" has been sitting in my Fic Ideas file now for probably 8 months, so now I'm getting it out of the file and into the...frying pan? Idk. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> I present to you the first part of Migrant Heart now. Expect Part 2 sometime early next week.

Migrant Heart

* * *

The driver’s license reads: _Isaac Lahey-McCall_. A brunet standing at six-foot-two, twenty-eight years old as of two months ago, and an organ donor. He has an address in town and a handsome photo.

Melissa McCall stares at it, and upon not recognizing the name or face, shrugs at the other nurse, Lisa Raney. A woman in her early thirties Melissa has known for six years now—they’ve shared a few lunches, countless shifts, a carpool or two, and are currently sharing an awkward moment.

“You don’t recognize him?” she asks. Her thin, tired face paints over with confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Melissa responds with a soft shrug and her attempt at a sweet smile. She doesn’t know of any of Raphael’s family left in Beacon Hills, but she supposes the man in the photo could be some distant relation to her ex-husband. She hands the photo back to Lisa who places it into the brown leather wallet as if on autopilot, eyes still fixated on Melissa’s face.

“I don’t know who else to contact then.” Remorse spills from chapped lips.

Melissa reaches a comforting hand over to squeeze her coworker’s shoulder.

“He’s not responsive.” It isn’t a question.

Lisa nods. “He was having severe muscle spasms while driving. An officer pulled him over for reckless driving and called an ambulance immediately. EMTs said he complained of a stiff neck and tightness in his face between spasms. He presented with a strange grin and muscle stiffness. Looked like an advanced tetanus infection, but for someone his age, it seemed so unlikely. I don’t know why he didn’t get to a hospital sooner. He must have been suffering for days already.”

Melissa feels the frown on her face deepen. The poor boy probably doesn’t have health insurance. She thinks immediately of her son, Isaac’s age and also uncovered despite her complaints. She’s seen tetanus infections leave patients permanently weak, and she knows of a few cases where sufferers spasm hard enough to constrict their airway, asphyxiating themselves. The infection is treatable but far from an easy road to recovery.

Lisa continues, “They put him into a medically-induced coma to prevent the worst of the spasms. Muscle relaxers weren’t helping enough.” She pushes air forcibly through her nostrils, flaring them and shutting her eyes to the world. “No one’s shown up asking about him yet.”

“Has he been here long?”

“Six hours and counting. Someone must be missing him.”

“Breathing on his own?”

Lisa nods.

Melissa’s response is an affirmative hum. She holds an arm out, palm open towards Lisa. “Was there a cell phone?”

Lisa nods, handing it over. “It’s locked.”

Melissa taps the back. “Fingerprint scanner,” she says matter-of-factly. “Lead the way.”

“How did I not think of that?” Lisa asks, mostly to herself. Melissa watches the shadow of guilt cross her face.

“Stress, exhaustion. Happens to me all the time in this place.”

They walk the rest of the way in silence until they reach Isaac’s room in ICU, monitors beeping to fill the void. Melissa looks at the young man, feelings of maternal care increasing at his soft expression helped only by the muscle relaxers.

“I never get used to seeing kids so helpless,” Melissa speaks into the symphony of machines. Lisa only nods while Melissa reaches for the patient’s hand, using his index finger to unlock the phone. The screen pops fully into view, and she clicks immediately into the contacts, looking for any name to pop out. There are relatively few contacts, but the one standing out the most reads, “Husband,” with an emoji of two men holding hands. She smiles through a bittersweet emotion, relieved yet squashing nerves at what promises to be a difficult phone call.

She quickly presses call, looking over at Lisa as the phone rings once, twice, three times before a familiar voice inches Melissa into further confusion.

“Isaac,” the voice carries a sense of urgency, worry. “I was getting worried here.” A modicum of relief joining the worry. “You don’t usually go so long between phone calls,” it chides through nervous energy.

Melissa breathes in deeply, unsure of herself and floating suddenly in what feels like an alternate reality.

“Scott?” she asks, unable to stop herself. The voice sounds uncannily like her son’s, and although she knows it shouldn’t be possible, the familiarity strikes her too fiercely to ignore.

“M-mom?” A newer panic fills the voice on the line. Melissa’s stomach swells with the weight of an anvil. She takes another breath to steady her nerves.

“Mom, why are you calling on Isaac’s phone?”

Questions. Melissa’s head is full of questions. Concerns. An accusation or two. But the beeping breaks through her reverie, and at Lisa’s insistent, inquisitive look, she pulls herself back into work mode.

“Scott, Isaac is in the hospital.” A sharp intake of breath cuts through the line. “Does he ha—”

"Is he okay?” Scott asks through a heavy breath.

“Scott, I— Does he have any family in town?” Melissa reaches down, gripping the edge of the hospital bed for support. She chances a look at Isaac’s not-quite-sleeping face but finds no immediate answers in its pallid features.

“Um.” Scott goes quiet. “Just me. I’m it.”

“He’s family?” Melissa asks cautiously.

“Scott?” She implores when only silence responds.

“We, uh, we’re married.”

Melissa feels herself float again, a sensation of darkness, of the unknown filling the space in the sanitized room. Scott’s voice joins the darkness.

“Mom, I’m on my way now.” She hears the faint chime of keys. “I’ll explain later, I promise.”

There are no words in Melissa’s dark space, so she offers a breathy sound as the line goes dead.

“Scott knows him?” Lisa’s voice is a light switch, and Melissa turns to her.

“He’s on his way.” She places the phone delicately on the bedside table and excuses herself without another glance in Lisa’s or Isaac’s direction, heading directly for the nearest breakroom.

For the first time in recent memory, Melissa uses the breakroom for just that: breaking.

+

The traffic in Beacon Hills is never really anything to write home about. Scott never had a reason before to complain or turn to road rage. Today feels different as he speeds to the hospital with a vice-like grip firmly on ten and two and a heartbeat racing like hummingbird wings.

He passes an older man in a truck from the 80s before reaching the road leading to the hospital. He freezes in the turning lane, worrying about Isaac, about his mother, about the secret he can’t keep between just him and Isaac any longer—about whether the secret even matters anymore or if it ever did in the first place.

His fingers tremble as tears collect at the edge of his vision. The old man and his truck pass by him. Two cars line up behind him in the turning lane, both beginning to honk their horns.

He eases carefully across, wheels now pointing to the hospital and a piece of himself lingering in the turning lane.

After parking, he waits again. For courage, for Isaac to call him back and say it’s all a prank, for a meteor. For the lingering part of himself to catch up. For one of those miracles his _abuela_ went on and on about.

But none of that happens, so he opens the door, steps out into the parking lot, and surprises himself at the speed his legs run to the front doors with. The receptionist directs him to the waiting room until his mother can collect him and walk him to the ICU. So he waits again as a monstrous dread gallops through his gut.

An hour and a half of rampaging dread later, his mother’s brown curls poke into the waiting room. When their eyes meet, he can see her hesitation. It isn’t alone, though. Sympathy gathers at the corner of her eyes, pulls at her sad smile. He sees his mom through the hesitation and the monster in his belly settles from a rampage to a tantrum.

“Mom,” he says as he meets her in the hallway. He hears the fear in his own voice, knows she does too. To his relief, she holds his hand and nods her head in the direction they should go. She pulls him along like he was a child again.

He thanks the universe and his _abuela_ under his breath.

“Is he alive?” He asks first.

Melissa squeezes his hand. “He’s alive and stable. They had to place him under a medically-induced coma.”

Scott stops mid-step. His legs gain a thousand pounds in a moment, refusing to budge. His heart beats at his ribcage to be let go.

“What happened?” Scott’s voice is a specter in the hallway, barely audible—chilly. Melissa pulls him into a tight embrace, a hand reaching to rub soothing circles on his back.

“He was having violent muscle spasms. They had to sedate him, or he could have seriously hurt himself.” She feels her son’s chest shudder through a sob. “Honey, look at me.” She pulls away, holding him on either side by his arms, kind brown eyes seeking out his own. He finally obliges, seeing her through the haze of teary eyes.

“Scott, did you notice he was having these spasms? Maybe he complained about muscle stiffness. Anything?”

“I haven’t seen him in about a week. The last time we talked was yesterday morning. He mentioned his neck was sore, but he said it was probably just the way he slept.”

Melissa’s face twists in further confusion. “You haven’t seen your _husband_ in a week?” She watches as her son’s face pales.

“It’s complicated,” he answers. He looks around as others stroll through the hallway. “Can we talk about it somewhere more private?”

Melissa nods, arm behind his back as she guides him to Isaac’s room. Curtains are pulled, closing off the otherwise glass room from outside view. A sign requests anyone in the vicinity be as quiet as possible. Scott reads it carefully, partially in avoidance of the room itself.

“I’m afraid to go in,” he admits softly. His hands clench and unclench at his side.

“I’m right here,” his mother assures him, nodding her head forward.

Scott walks slowly to the door. Opening it makes him feel like Atlas, holding up the world for the first time. Or maybe like Orpheus descending into Hades’ realm.

His eyes land immediately on Isaac’s still form, and his breath catches at the back of his throat with a pitiful sound. His feet carry him to the edge of the bed unbidden.

“Careful,” his mother calls as she closes the door. “I know it may be difficult, but please, no touching.”

At her son’s incredulous look, she clarifies, “He’s sedated and on muscle relaxers, but we have to be cautious for his sake.”

Scott steadies himself with a calming breath and wraps his arms around himself to keep them away from Isaac. He looks down, eyes glued to Isaac’s unnaturally still face. Soft breaths raise and lower his chest so gently it’s like he isn’t breathing at all. Tubes on his face feed him more oxygen than his lungs can gather on their own. Scott focuses on the IV in Isaac’s arm, unable to look anywhere else for fear of the fragility overwhelming him further. His body shivers with a chill of helplessness he’d never experienced before.

“Why?” he whispers to the room.

“Tetanus infection,” his mother offers as she joins her son, leaning against his side with one arm around his back.

“Tetanus,” Scott repeats. “It can do all this?”

Melissa nods. “That’s why it’s so important to keep your shots up to date.” Her statement leaves an unasked question hanging in the air about Isaac’s own shot records.

Scott deflates further, so Melissa guides him to a nearby chair and kneels in front of him, hands on his knees.

“He’s British,” Scott says eventually. “And his dad’s a real piece of work. I don’t think he took him to the doctor once. For anything.”

Melissa lets this information sink in, a tug of sympathy reaching her heart for both boys again. “Wouldn’t he need shot records to immigrate?”

Scott looks away, focusing on one of the noisy machines to his right and chews at his lower lip.

“Scott, sweetie, you can tell me anything.” She lets the words carry a heavy load, hoping he hears she means more than about the medical questions at hand.

He swallows loudly. “I think he maybe had some things forged to escape. He wasn’t safe there,” Scott half-pleads.

Melissa nods without judgment. “I can understand,” she says.

“We were supposed to go to a medical exam in two weeks and a biometrics appointment next month.” Scott looks up, meeting his mother’s eyes as he says this. They widen with some understanding.

“Green card application?” she asks.

Scott nods.

“Is he here legally?”

“Does it matter?” Scott defends.

Melissa swats at his leg and gives him a stern look despite the situation—or perhaps because of it. “You know it doesn’t matter to me. But if he’s not registered, it could complica—”

“He’s legal.” Scott adds, his cheeks red with admonishment. “For now,” he finishes softly.

“Good,” his mom states as she stands.

The silence between them stretches on from seconds to minutes until Melissa sighs, tired of waiting for her son to begin the conversation.

“Did you think I wouldn’t approve?” she asks him.

Scott looks up at her through a guilty face like a child’s. She knocks her own head to the side, smiling down at him with a bittersweet emotion.

“Scott, you know I love you no matter what.”

That seems to break him of what little composure he was holding onto as his head hangs down, and he cries openly.

Melissa rushes over, arms around her son. She holds him while he cries, humming soothing sounds into his hair as tears of her own fall for her broken child.

“It’s not real,” he chokes out after working through the banks of tears he’d been storing.

“Not real?” his mother asks, not entirely sure she understands.

“I didn’t tell you because it’s not a real marriage. He, uh, well, he needed papers to stay here.” Scott looks up, eyes bloodshot and ringed by puffy red skin. “I couldn’t let him go back to England. His dad would find him, and—” Scott stops. His mother seems to understand what he means, though, so she doesn’t ask him to explain further.

“It seems pretty real from where I’m sitting,” she tells him.

He offers her a short, bitter laugh like a cough and shrugs.

She hums, letting this go unexamined. For now.

“For the record,” she says with a hand running over her son’s hair, “you could have told me either way.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott replies earnestly. He stands up, hugging her tightly. “I really am sorry,” he tells her again.

She pats him on the back, kissing his cheek as she pulls away. “I’ve got a few more things to do until I’m off. Do you want to stay, or do you want me to walk you out?”

Scott shakes his head. “I’ll wait here. Am—am I allowed to stay with him?”

Melissa frowns. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let visitors stay in the ICU overnight.”

Scott nods, already anticipating the answer and moves to stand by Isaac’s side.

“How long will he be like this?” he asks his mother as she turns to leave.

“We have to monitor the level of toxins. Until he’s cleared of the infection, we can’t risk bringing him out. The risk of a life-threatening spasm is too high.”

Scott makes a weak noise at the back of his throat in response.

“He has a fighting chance,” Melissa assures him. “And we’ll monitor him closely. I promise. But he’ll need physical therapy and someone to care for him after he recovers. It could take months, and you need to know that he may never regain his full muscle strength from before the infection.”

Her son turns to face her, a shock exaggerating his features. “This can cause permanent damage?”

She nods slowly, sadly. Her lips are set in a thin, not-smile, not-frown she’s always offered patients and families with the delivery of bad news. “We always like to prepare the family for any worst-case scenarios,” she tells him. “You may need to be his caretaker for a while.”

“I can do that,” he says confidently, turning back to watch Isaac’s shallow breaths.

Melissa calls a tender, “I love you,” to him as she leaves. He responds with a quieter, “Love you too,” though his eyes linger on Isaac’s face.

+

The hospital room is resplendently white, so much so that it’s painful—ironically so in a place of healing. Scott’s eyes ache from looking around for too long at anything so bright. They ache from the tears he sheds routinely. They ache to see Isaac so helpless, so unlike he should be.

Scott thinks back, remembering how they’d met online when Isaac was still overseas, finishing university yet living at home quite literally under his father’s tyrannical fist. Despite his situation, Isaac made Scott laugh daily with a sly, sardonic sense of humor aimed at an unfair world. In time, Scott also witnessed how kind and open Isaac was when anyone showed him the slightest ounce of humanity. During their video calls, Scott found himself unable to peel his eyes off Isaac’s handsome face and unwilling to hide his appreciation for the Brit’s honeyed accent. It was during one of these moments Scott asked his friend if he would ever consider moving to the United States. Scott offered his home and whatever help he could give. To his continued surprise, Isaac accepted, and in what seemed like only minutes, Isaac was on his doorstep with a duffel bag, a backpack, and a few new bruises. The bruises left quickly enough; the bags and Isaac stayed.

Two years later, Scott yearns to hold the other man’s hand.

“You’re moving back in with me,” Scott says suddenly into the quiet spaces. “You won’t be able to argue about this anymore.” He feels the threat of tears and sucks in a sharp breath, willing it away. “No more, ‘I don’t want to be a burden,’ bullshit,” he says, looking right at Isaac’s face and wanting to stare into his eyes as he says it.

“You’ve never been a burden,” he says more softly. “You’ve never been anything but perfect.”

Silence regains the foothold, only chorused by the beeping machines and the nearly imperceptible hum of nurses and doctors passing outside.

Scott waits patiently, quietly with Isaac and wills his body to fight the infection. He imagines the antitoxins storming the beaches, fighting back the tetanus. He wishes he knew more about it all, knowing Isaac would tease him for the image. He imagines Isaac waking up to tease him.

He focuses on studying Isaac’s face in its stillness, scared that he might disappear if he blinks too long.

+

Scott offers his mother a ride home to save her the trouble of taking the bus so late in the evening and to save himself the pain of going home to live with his considerate fears.

During the ride, Melissa talks about her shift, about a woman who’d showed up losing nearly a liter of fluid per hour. Scott thought maybe that was a lot by his mother’s tone but wasn’t sure. His mother said something about cholera. Scott wanted to talk about anything else.

“Mom?” he asks as she takes a moment to check her phone for texts.

Without looking up, she offers a humming noise for him to continue.

“Can we talk about something that isn’t so _Grey’s Anatomy_? I’m kind of freaking out over here, and this is not helping.”

Melissa shuts off the phone, looking over at her son with a soft frown. “Everything will work out,” she tells him. “His toxicity is already showing improvement.”

Scott turns quickly, giving her a blank stare. “Mom,” he deadpans.

She sighs light-heartedly. “He’s showing signs of recovery already. He’s young, appears to be healthy otherwise, and has a high chance of recovery.”

Nibbling at his lip, he asks, “Promise?”

“You know it doesn’t work that way. There are no promises in medicine, but he has a fighting chance, and he’s responding well to treatment.”

At the noise of bitter acceptance, Melissa continues, “I saw a man in his sixties once who showed up after three days of enduring violent muscle spasms while sitting in a jail cell.”

Her son looks over with shock before turning his attention back to the road.

“He was under for six weeks, but he survived, and he’s able to walk on his own.”

With no further noises from Scott, Melissa adds, “Isaac apparently only showed signs of violent spasms earlier today.”

“So…if the old guy can do it, so can Isaac?”

Skipping the admonishment for the ‘old guy’ comment, Melissa nodded. “Basically.”

Scott accepts this explanation.

+

Once at his childhood home, Scott heads upstairs to wash the feeling of the hospital off him as quickly as possible. When he returns downstairs in worn out sweats he hasn’t worn since high school, he notices his mother is also fresh from a shower. Her still-wet hair is swept up in a towel, sitting precariously atop her head.

Scott swallows around a lump in his throat and joins her, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa from her.

“Do you, uh, have questions?” His eyes are trained on the coffee table in front of him, tracing the scratches in it from Hot Wheels he’d raced across its fabricated highways years earlier.

Melissa hums pleasantly, thinking. The sound does nothing to soothe her son’s withered nerves.

“Just one,” she finally says. “You said the marriage isn’t real, but…” her voice trails off as she thinks how to phrase her question delicately.

“He doesn’t know,” Scott says, his head hanging down as his knees pull up to his chest, arms encircling them. The position feels steady, yet he feels like he’s a breath away from crumbling. He hasn’t said this to anyone yet, not even out loud to himself.

“I haven’t told him how I feel.”

“Scott,” his mother calls, her voice wavering at the admission.

“I’m a coward,” he says, holding his legs tighter to his chest. He hasn’t sat like this in years, and it feels uncomfortable like the stale-smelling sweats he’s outgrown.

Melissa slides across the cushion between them, arms wrapping around her son’s shoulders and pulling him to her as she shushes him from breaking into a full-on sob. “You’re many things, Scott, but you’ve never been a coward.”

“I’m too afraid of telling him I want something real. That makes me a coward. I’ve had hundreds of chances, _thousands_ ,” he says firmly.

“So tell him when he wakes up,” his mother says, equally firm in her tone. “If you regret not saying something, then say it. Wallowing will only hurt you more than you deserve, sweetheart.”

“ _If_ he wakes up,” Scott says bitterly.

“ _When_ ,” his mother corrects. Her voice carries a finality Scott can’t argue against, hasn’t ever been able to. “Have faith in him, son. He’s trying.”

Scott nods once, too tired for more.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks, voice hoarse.

“You know you’re always welcome here. This is your home,” his mom says, tightening her hold on his shoulders. “You can come with me in the morning to sit with Isaac again if you want.”

“Can I?” he asks, finally looking up through red-rimmed eyes.

“I’ll wake you up when I get up,” she tells him, patting his cheek softly. She kisses his forehead and stands up. “Now I’m going to bed.” Pointing a motherly finger at him, she looks directly in his eyes, and says, “Don’t you dare sit down here feeling sorry for yourself. Get some sleep.” She gives him a final determined look before turning and heading for her own room. Scott listens as her socked feet pad softly into her room until her bed creaks and the light flicks off.

So what if he feels bad for himself a little? No one has to know, not really. He can cry quietly, wallow in a peaceful darkness.

He doesn’t make it up to his old room for hours, but when he does, his exhausted body passes into sleep the minute he hits the bed. His sleep is dreamless.

His body is a ton of battered bricks learning to walk for the first time in the morning when his mother’s loud knock wakes him up. She drives them to the hospital while he stares ahead, quiet and dazed as if stepping into a dreamland.

When he finds himself standing in front of Isaac’s room in the ICU again, he corrects himself—it’s all a nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved and appreciated as are you, reader.


End file.
